Our Mission: Our partnership with MAPS has demonstrated the value of open communication between the drug research and drug user communities, and has demonstrated the need for a permanent base for discussion. The Drug Studies forum is a platform where drug-related scientific and sociological studies and surveys can be discussed. With this in mind, we would like to open our community to the research community as a base to draw its data from. Additionally, we'll serve to increase awareness of the various studies ongoing at any given time, as well as a launch pad for new projects and partnerships between other organizations and academic institutions.

Guidelines for posting in Drug Studies

FOR RESEARCHERS:

We launched the DRUG STUDIES forum in 2007 and are using it to build a consolidated history of our collaboration with the research community. The idea is to have all such studies in one place for future researchers, general public education, and intelligent discussion on the findings from these studies. In case you haven't had a chance to check out our forum, please take a moment to look through what we've done with others in the past and how we operate with researchers such as yourself.

Forum members that read about your research can respond freely and immediately, however all posts will be reviewed by a team of moderators to make sure they align with the Bluelight User Agreement and with the general purpose of this forum. Please take the time to make yourself familiar with our Bluelight User Agreement (BLUA).

How do I get my research study off the ground with Bluelight?

Get yourself a username and account.

It is a requirement of recruiting on Bluelight that you have your own account with us. This is so you can control how your recruitment thread is posted, edit it if necessary, as well as respond to questions or concerns. For reference, our registration page can be found by clicking here. We ask that when you sign up to Bluelight, that you use an academic or organisational email address – not a personal email address.

Put together your recruitment information.

Once you have signed up with Bluelight, create a new thread that meets our minimum requirements (see below) in the Drug Studies forum. The moderators will be alerted to your new thread and will help you to amend it if required.

What should my recruitment thread look like?

In order to best assist you in finding candidates for your study, your recruitment thread should contain the following:

Your name, institution and an email address associated with your institution, both to maintain the professional image of the study and to give us an organisational reference should we want to contact you after your study concludes.

A statement declaring if the study has received ethical clearance and, if so, from which authorised body.

A clear start date and (if possible) end date for the study.

A short study description. We appreciate that the detail you wish to make available will be dependent on what you feel you can provide without compromising the design of your study. That said, the more detail, the better. Potential participants will want to know what it is they’re entering into or contributing towards.

Remember, when you put this information together, it should take the form of how you'd like it to appear to the public. For example:

EXAMPLE SUBMISSION

Hi there,

My name's John Smith and I'm studying at Hoffman University in Shulginsville, Mississippi. I'm looking to recruit people for a study that is investigating the relationship between long-term LSD use and empathic ability, as scored by a multiple index of communicative ability. The study has been approved by the Hoffman University unified Ethics Committee.

The survey itself should take no longer than 20 minutes to complete and is easy to use. There is a second phase to the study where certain participants may be contacted (if you choose to provide contact details) for a 30 minute interview to discuss their results. Any participants selected for the second phase will be reimbursed $5 for their time.

This study begins on the 5th December 2007 and will run until 24th March 2008. It's open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 65 and I am looking for anyone who has used LSD in the last 5 years.

Once you have put this information into a thread and posted it, we will view the information contained. If there are errors, omissions or questions that arise, we will contact you to sort them out.

We would also request that you refrain from cross-posting your recruitment thread in other Bluelight forums. It may be appropriate, perhaps where the study is substance or geographically specific, to advertise in one of the regional or focus forums, but this will be done at the Drug Studies moderator's discretion.

Recruiting, Writing-up and Publishing

During the study, we will monitor the thread and will edit or remove anything inappropriate or off-topic. If there are posts that may jeopardize the validity of the recruitment effort (e.g., sharing of recruitment criteria details), please contact the moderators and we can discuss editing or removing that information. We do, however, want to encourage intelligent discussion of the research project, methods and topic. We sincerely hope you stay with us to contribute to the discussion and learn from other participants as well.

Once the recruitment period has ended, please take the time to come back to the thread and let us know the status of the study. We will change the study headers to indicate that the study is now in the phase 'writing-up'. At this point, the Bluelight community waits while you and your team write up the results.

We understand that the analysis and writing-up process can take some time! However, once complete, we would appreciate hearing from you again. You can report the findings as either a link to where it is published, or a copy that we can host for our readers, or any other medium that works most easily for you. At this stage, we will consider the project 'published' and change its status. We hope that the results will stimulate further discussion with both yourself and our forum members.

We have added the following prefixes to aid in finding threads:

(Assignment) - Not a sanctioned or funded research project.

(Recruiting) - A researcher submitted study that is still currently seeking applicants. We ask that all projects submitted to us include the planned time frame for open recruitment.

(Writing-up) - The recruitment phase has concluded and the results are being refined for submission. We ask that as a study progresses to this phase, the researchers let us know so we can update the thread and not drive further applicants after the study has closed. Similarly, an approximate time for planned submission would be apprecaited.

(Published) - The results have been published at this phase, and we hope to provide a link to where members, and other researchers, can find and build upon the study's findings.

(Terminated) - For whatever reason, there are times that a project may become terminated. We prefix these threads accordingly so other researchers can perhaps pick up where the project was halted, or members will realize the study is no longer taking applicants.

There is the obvious need to reward applicants with the results of their efforts and the desire to educate our readers with the results. We will accommodate whatever means you feel necessary to protect any copyrights or intellectual property, but we do expect some form of feedback from the study that we can share.

Does Bluelight accept donations?

Bluelight appreciates any donations you can make which will go towards the maintenance of the forums. We can provide site-wide banner advertising for your research project in recognition of your donation. Please contact monica@bluelight.org to make an inquiry.

FOR MEMBERS:

As you know, the Bluelight User Agreement (BLUA) is always in full effect. Furthermore, this forum is intended to be for research purposes and we expect a proper level of respect and interaction with our researcher friends. Although we encourage you to get involved in the discussion, realize we may need to edit questions or comments while a study is ongoing since we would not want to bias the readers who may participate. However, all such questions and concerns will be communicated with the researcher in hopes that answers can be provided without negative effect. We appreciate your patience in this regard.

Once a study is 'published' and the results have been shared, our hope is that the ensuing discussion will help build information for anyone who later comes seeking data - future readers and researchers alike can learn from how a study was run, and how the findings are viewed. Your opinion will be invaluable in this regard.

What should and shouldn't be posted? We don't intend to steal content from DITM or ADD or the regional forums. Please do not attempt to sidetrack a specific thread with replies that are either off topic, out of scope or just plain pointless. Such replies will be eliminated and warnings will be issued to repeat offenders. We are very lucky to have members of the research community willing to spend some of their time contributing to this forum, and out of respect it is our responsibility to ensure that their time is not wasted on forum/thread management.

We encourage individuals to learn as much as they can about these studies and engage in constructive conversation about them both on and off the board. It should also be understood that the studies and surveys that will be discussed in this forum will all be legitimate - scientifically designed and implemented by professionals. In the case of clinical studies looking to enroll subjects, they will all be medically supervised and approved. We will work to advertise these studies in the headers of appropriate forums, please help us help science by finding candidates for these projects.

Thank you all, and we look forward to interacting with you here.

Last edited by Tronica; 23-03-2015 at 22:50.
Reason: Revised guidelines